Nobel laureates among women planning march across Korean DMZ

Two Nobel Peace laureates and American feminist Gloria Steinem are among a group of 30 women planning to march across the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea to press demands for reunification.

Steinem told a news conference at the United Nations on Wednesday that the march scheduled for May 24 would draw on women's successes in peacemaking to advance calls for Korean peace.

Taking part in the march will be Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee, who won the Nobel in 2011 for mobilizing Liberian women against her country's brutal war and Mairead Corrigan Maguire, whose peace efforts in Northern Ireland were recognized with the prize in 1976.

"It's hard to imagine a more physical symbol of the insanity of dividing human beings than this zone," Steinem said.

"To me, to walk across it, has huge, huge, huge importance."

The planned "walk for peace and reunification" is to start off in Pyongyang where the delegation is to meet with North Korean women before setting out for the DMZ.

Organizers said they had received tentative approval from UN command in the DMZ to allow the women to cross from Panmunjom, if South Korea agrees, but there has been no formal word yet from Seoul.

North Korea has said it will support the march in principle, but stressed that a final okay would be given "if conditions are ripe," said Christine Ahn, from the Women De-Militarize the Zone group.

"Given the tense moment right now, they might not be," said Ahn.

Women from over a dozen countries are set to take part in the march, held as the peninsula marks 70 years of division.

"What we learned from Northern Ireland and Liberia (is that) women from both sides said 'enough is enough.' We don't want any of our sons and daughters to become victims of this war," said Hyun-Kyung Chung, a professor of theology and one of the participants.

"What I would like to see happen is nothing less than a miracle," she said.

North and South Korea signed an armistice after the 1950-1953 war, but efforts at reunification and the signing of a formal peace treaty have been at a standstill.